


Solicitous in Calamity

by Scornful_truth



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety Attack (Implied), Bittersweet, Brief summary of game, Fluffy as Angst could get, Holy Moly theres a lot of metaphors, Love happens post game, Lying to cope, M/M, Ouma Kokichi Needs a Hug, panic attack (implied)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-16 11:44:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21507406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scornful_truth/pseuds/Scornful_truth
Summary: " When your chest aches and your head is swimming with all of your faults and all of your flaws and you can't seem to find your footing, remember that fear is a liar. That you have been here before, and you will breathe again. Remember that you are enough. Always enough. "When Kokichi is lost inside his broken head full of disasters, he stumbles his way into a warm welcoming peace. A peace he'd been searching for all his life, a sense of rightness and serenity that belonged to his beloved. A boy who he longed to be held by, since the moment he saw his calmness, against his calamity.
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 122





	Solicitous in Calamity

**Author's Note:**

> "I need you to love me a little bit harder today."

Anxiety is a physical state to be in, not only in your mind.

Anyone who tries to argue otherwise should be given a glare and the silent treatment. Since when the detrimental thought enters his head, some other part of him, the buried version of himself that was scared, took the wheel.

If it isn’t a physical state, then why do the muscles in his chest stiffen. Why do his breathes shorten, and why would he shake under the impression that he was no longer safe. Anxiety is felt. It’s the chilled wash of Ice cold water dousing your boiling skin in sharp prickling fears.

It’s never the fault of the person experiencing it. Because this feeling approaches when least uncalled for. When the surge of fear engulfs the victim, on severe levels, the world whitens out to a dull fuzz. Anything beyond the wall that shot up was dangerous, leading to dizziness to seep into the mind, and in bad cases, the person is found hyperventilating and on the verge of collapse.

Only in severe cases.

Anxiety when clashing with panic is as worse as two tornados dancing around each other over one town. Expect the town is your body and mind, and the twins of horror are ripping apart everything you know, and by the end of hardly 10 minutes, you’re left to gape hopelessly at the ruin that once was you.

To him, he feels like he’s been sitting in his broken mind, staring at the damage for years. When he was younger, he would run over to rebuild what he used to keep close to his heart and be satisfied with its renewal. Now, he gave up. And he’s a coward to admit that.

Since his body suffered earthquakes worth of destruction. His mind had been shattered with inner wind speeds that took the hinges off his insanity. Floods soaked his rib cage and decayed it to brittle bone. The harsh thunder and lightning burnt out his nerves, leaving them to shake in unstableness. Disaster after disaster. He’s left sitting in the midst of it.

Staring, often times he’s just staring. Occasionally he’d poke at the wreckage and wish it was fixed. But otherwise, the walls of his emotions rotted and fell apart. His mental state had washed away. Leaving his physical remains to be a hollow shell of a wasted human, stuck in ravage downfall of his heart.

Anytime he feels _good_. Good enough to crack a couple of genuine smiles, panic swells in his mind and the anxious part of him leaps out of hiding to start screaming. Anxiety recites every bad thing ever to backstab him, all the people who left him, all the pain the disasters brought, and panic only made him relive the agony.

His anxiety doesn’t come out when he tells a falsehood. A lie. When he covers himself in deceit, panic never shows up. He feels _fine_. He feels _okay_ when he crawls up inside the wreckage of his mind and just stays there, to never come back out.

Except, as much as he feels okay, people shun themselves away when he needs them the most. They are inside their minds, with minimal damage, and they stare out through their un-cracked windows to look down upon him. To spit at him, to curse, to insult, all because he lives in a broken mind.

The world is always dark in his eyes. He sees things others don’t, he warns them, they go ignored. It frustrates him to no end that no one understands him. When he lies, it’s about sensitive things he doesn't want to panic thinking about. He avoids disasters at all costs, and yet when he does tell truths, the ones people want to hear, he’s accused of lying.

It’s all so frustrating.

His arms are painful bare. By that, he means no one fills them. No one has ever offered him an embrace to hide in. No one has invited him over to stay in the comfort of an untouched peace of mind, with no disasters to haunt him. Where no thunder clouds hang over him, unlike the monsoons that rain and rain because of the poor condition he kept himself in. He wanted that dry, quiet, welcoming peace.

But no one ever lets him in. And quite frankly, neither does he.

But he has such a good reason to not let anyone see inside him. He’s saving them from looking at such a bloody mess. A horrible jacked-up place where glass and wood sat dug into the ground. Where the rigged oil that once was connected to sense and trust now sprayed from nowhere. His mind had been totaled and nothing could bring it back.

So he sits helplessly as it storms overhead. Wishing he was in another place, so he could be taken in by others that were _okay_.

But no one would. Because he was broken.

It never aided in any sort of healing when he woke up in a strange place. In a strange world. With strange people, of strange titles.

When a mechanical bear called it a killing game, anxiety exploded from its crack in his mind, igniting nervous laughter to burst from his lips. Panic no sooner followed.

That whole experience of heavy unrelenting paranoia was just constant destruction of his mind. The ruins were crushed into splinters and specks of irreplaceable dust. He knew that if everything disappeared, he would have the mental breakdown of his life. With nothing to call his own, not even the waste of what wholesome innocence used to be, he would finally break.

After witnessing murder after murder, seeing the lifeless bodies, he was spiraling downwards. By the third trial, half his mind had left. It was fragmenting into useless pieces and fading away. By the fourth trail, only a few threads were connecting him and his façade, that he cherished so deeply. Not that he loved it, he depended his life on it.

Then, the threads snapped. The fibers blew away in a dust storm. And he was left staring at the idea of suicide. It covered the void he sat in, and anxiety and panic no longer had cracks to hide in. It was there. Never covered. It was hovering above him and weighing on him. The feeling crushed his chest and squeezed out his breaths in sharp pulls.

So he conducted a plan to end his broken life. He never wanted to die, truly, but with his loveless history of rejection and heavily highlighted abandonment, there was nothing to breathe for, no one to stay for.

When he thought all the pain was over. It wasn’t.

Life pulled another one on him and forced all the revolting agony to shoot up his chest and pour out his lips in the most blood-curdling scream he’s ever made.

Because he never died. It was a lie. It was _all_ a lie.

He doesn’t remember too much after he woke up in that stiff hospital bed, other than the ear-bleeding screaming he had done. There were no tears, there was just screaming. He screamed until his throat rang too raw and closed-up on him, even then he tried to curse the world and kick and harm any human being in his path. Especially the ones that were going to touch him.

Leading to the nurses sedating him.

All the pain, panic and anxiety boiled down to now. Where he sat painfully still in that hospital room, on the bed, staring at nothing. When really he was staring at his vacant mind. How nothing filled it. And how it hurt so badly.

He wanted a place to go. He wanted someone to help him. He wanted and desired so many things, and yet he couldn’t ask for it, with the horrid realization that no one cared for him. No one would provide those things.

_Was it too much to ask?_

Yes. Wishing for love was a tall order when it came at the expense of another’s  
feelings. He only yearned for someone to say his name with care, with a heartfelt warmth to it. He wanted that person to whisper his name in his ear and make him feel like he’s never heard it before, and yet make it feel so right.

He wanted someone to hold him. Invite him into their mind where he could heal. He so desperately wished to be healed. His mind was covered in wounds, so was his heart. It bled every drop of blood filled with regrets and shame. Someone needed to see past his lies,

And that someone existed, but they weren’t here with him.

There was a boy who had the softest smile, the gentlest of touch. A caring heart and the biggest pool of compassion and love. There was a boy with silky hair and a strong body, which he imagines selfishly those sturdy arms protecting him. That boy was the kindest to him.

_Shuichi Saihara_ , how he regrets pushing him away. How he hates himself for not being able to deal with the pain of being honest and truthful.

Kokichi wondered, pondered, and thought about it too much. In his vacant mind, all he saw was Shuichi. The only person who his heart still beats for.

Yet, even after three weeks of being here. No one cared to visit, not even his beloved.

It was heart dampening, gut-wrenching, to be ignored and not even thought about by the person he wished so badly to be held by. It hurt. It hurt so blindly bad. Suicide was the only way he could come up with as an antidote to the anguish, but he’s a coward.

So he can’t bring himself to do it.

A day later. Someone knocked on his door. Ever so softly three times. Kokichi looked up at the door, it was strange since the nurses knocked twice quickly without delicacy and came on in without a word of his clearance.

After a moment of silence, Kokichi tilted his head, a reaction out of confusion. _Was the person waiting for him to allow them in?_

Again, there are the gentle knocks, but this time a voice is attached to it. The voice makes his heart plunge and skitter across the floor of his chest because he knows that voice.

“Kokichi? ...Mind if I come in? It’s Shuichi.”

Panic. Panic shatters in his mind and pollutes the air. He can’t bring himself to speak. The toxins choke his throat and the boiling wash of horror crawled up his spine to settle in his stomach. The sweat trickled down the back of his neck as his breaths cut short. He can’t speak. He can’t. But Shuichi might go away. _He really doesn't want him to go away._

So Kokichi wore a grimace as he stared at the door with a pale face. As if the boy on the other end read his mind, the knob twisted, and the door opened.

Two pairs of eyes connected, one set full of anxiety, the other being calm.

“Hey…” Shuichi greeted quietly as he closed the door with equal softness. He was smiling slightly, at him. He was smiling _at him_. But it was a sad smile and Kokichi’s heart gave a tug in the wrong direction. The direction that anxiety shrieked at.

Only betrayal sat at the end of that path, but he spent so long running from it that it’s the only path he sees. So even with his racing heart and shaking hands that gripped the blanket, he took a step in that direction. When Shuichi sat down on the bed facing him, he swallowed dryly.

“...Sorry, I haven’t been in sooner,” Shuichi apologized. “...The nurses kept telling me that you were in a fragile state in mind, so they didn’t let me in.” His golden eyes once again found shimmering purple. Leading to another sad smile. “They told me that you wanted to see me, a couple of weeks ago…” he sighed. “...but that’s why I was kept from you. They said you might react badly because I- well… you know. Figured out the plan in-game.”

Kokichi bit his lip. Before deciding on shaking his head. No. No, of course he wouldn’t be angry. He’s not mad at anyone but himself. “...Shuichi…” he whispered. He would be putting all eggs in one basket at this point. It’s his only choice since he has no other basket to put his risks in.

Shuichi’s attention was on him, and him alone. So he tried again, to speak more than his beloved's name. “...I missed you.”

Truth. It’s the truth, and the cold slap of panic rushed back in again. Anxiety begged him to take it back. Cover it up with a lie. “I-I really… really missed you.” His voice cracks under his own stress. He’s about to shatter again, and he only begs Shuichi to pick him back up once he burnt himself out.

Shuichi reached forward and took his hand that was cramping from muscle use. Kokichi shuttered out a trembling sigh as he felt Shuichi’s thumb brush over his knuckles and loosen the tension he had when he gripped the blanket. “...Me too.” He whispered. “I missed you too.”

Again, something fractures. Or, no. Something had been sparked. Deep in his calloused heart, the shell around it was being pulled at. The force of it wanted in, where he kept himself alive. Where he kept his feelings for Shuichi. At that, Kokichi felt his eyes sting with tears.

“...can you…” Kokichi whispered it so quietly, his heart beat for the question, he wanted it to come tumbling out, much rather than the tears that built up against his eyes. “...h-hold me. Please… can you hold me..” he felt his skin burn at the question. _Take him._ He wants Shuichi to take him, use him, let him become Shuichi’s other half. He has nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The tears of pain rolled down his cheeks. Kokichi was scared of rejection, he’s terrified of hurting any more than he has. So when Shuichi came that much closer, when he pulled his aching body against his cool and calm one, Kokichi cried.

He sobbed against him as the welcoming hands invited him into his mind. Kokichi saw it, the blue skies of his heart, the peaceful seas of his love, the quiet calm of his entire person as a whole. He was overwhelmed, and yet so, so unmistakably overjoyed at the gentle touch.

Shuichi’s heart beat so soundly. The coolness of his chest simmered down the flaming rage of Kokichi’s body. The former detective tucked him against his side, saying words against his forehead, kissing his cheek, wiping away the tears. Kokichi threw his arms around him, parting with this euphoric warmth was too hard. It was impossible.

“...I’ll help you,” Shuichi said as he threaded his fingers through Kokichi’s soft hair. “...I’ll help cure the storms inside you… I’ll chase them away, I promise.” All the words he said. Kokichi tied himself to. He’d never let them go. “...I’ll heal you, even when you think you can’t be healed…”

The excitement of his heart jumped tenfold, tears tracked down his cheeks as he imagined a peaceful place for his mind to rest. Where he could have a break. He kissed Shuichi’s neck without a way to vocalize the amount of thankfulness. The gratitude scorched his chest and came pouring out of his heart, and slipping down his face.

“....T-Take me.” He whispered. “T-Take me home… your home… I-I wanna-...I wanna be with you…” then he could fix him, heal him, cure him. Help him rebuild the mind that shattered so long ago from the ground up.

Shuichi hugged him close, if not closer. “...I will, I promise.”

It was a promise that he cherished. Here in the arms of the person he loved the most, he could finally let go of the anxiety of being alone, of being in pain. Now, for the first time in his life, someone had reached out and grabbed his hand that he’d been waving around as a joke. 

“Shuichi…” he said again, as he pressed his lips against his cheek and took in the cradling arms that circled him. 

“Yes?” Such a tender voice, so smooth and inviting. Kokichi’s heart slowed in soothing. Just his breath, his words, his hold, would calm at least a small bit of the storm thrashing around inside him.

“I-I…” He needs to say it. He failed to say it in-game, he failed to say it to anyone before, he needs to say it now. “...Love you... I love you. So.. so much.” The words torched his lungs and he had to squeeze his eyes shut, he couldn’t bear the weight anymore. The weight of the words were too heavy.

Shuichi hummed, those gentle hands pulled him in so he cradled him in his lap. How small Kokichi felt, how innocent he seemed, it was wrong to have him in so much pain. “Kokichi…” he said softly, closing his own eyes, whispering his next words in his ear so not even the air could hear it. 

“...I love you too.”

Finally, the storm disappeared.

**Author's Note:**

> Panic and Anxiety suuck to have, sorry if this made no sense. kinda of a vent fic, but yet again, all my writing is a fat vent. I hope you enjoyed it to at least a little extent


End file.
